Alan Hewitt
Landcare Research

I love soils especially the complete entities out there in the field. I came to this happy state out of geology and chemistry during a very enjoyable year at Lincoln Uni. way back in '73. Starting in soil survey with DSIR Soil Bureau in Otago I relished the challenge of understanding how landscapes worked and how to predict soil properties by reading the land surface clues - and without digging too many holes. A PhD followed at Cornell returning home to develop the NZ Soil Classification.

I have worked and published in many aspects of soil science including land evaluation, soil quality, carbon dynamics, erosion, environmental risk analysis, data modeling, and latterly databases. A current focus is to provide better national coverage of soil information, centered on the S-map project. In travels about NZ I am constantly appalled at the profound levels of ignorance about soil. We must do better in making soils understandable and knowledge about soil and its services more accessible.

I work at Landcare Research at Lincoln as a Research Leader and live at Rolleston with Liz on an acre of non-high-class soil. My acre keeps me busy mowing the stones, and irrigating. I also paint landscapes and portraits and stretch to painting soil profiles, even using soil as a painting medium.